Academy - skilling drills

Got to Ice Hockey Academy tonight for fifth week in a row.  Well and truly smashed my previous record from last year (three).  Everyone in the group tonight had been there last week.  This week, about a dozen skaters and John the goalie (who I last saw between the pipes on Sunday evening).  Cory took the session unassisted.

I noticed a gathering of several prem c coaches were watching us as they talked amongst themselves nearby, not sure if they were scouting or just waiting for the c grade training session which was after ours, or what.  Probably a mix of all three.  Anyway, I didn't let it bother me one way or t'other and just got on with what was a pretty well paced training session.

We started with a few warm up laps, then some basic red to blue to blue to red skating runs.  Left foot stops, right foot stops, backwards power strides, inside and outside edge c cuts, left and right foot glides, left and right foot edgework.  Then red line to far blue, backwards to near blue, to far red, backwards to red pushing/pulling a goal (resistance training).  Then crossover circles around all five circles in turn.

Then it was passing across half the ice to a partner, then fully across the ice, backhand passing.  Then, a variation where one in mid rink and one on boards with puck.  Board skates forwards, middle player skates backwards to maintain distance.  When forward skater gets half way (and backwards skater is at the boards) then pass, and the exercise then immediately repeats the other way.

Next topic, some pointers while shooting from a half circle at about 20'.  Basically, cross the arms over to maximise leverage from both arms and shift the wait forward.  Thus, when we next shot from before the blue line on each side of rink, we took the shot with the weight on the back leg and stepped onto the front leg as we connected for the weight transfer, generating more power yet again.  Very valuable lessons, which were immediately used in a one on one battle with both skaters racing from the corners at the same end of the rink to take possession of the puck in the centre, skating on for a shot on goal.

This segued into a skate up the centre drill, with two pylon players on opposite sides of the rink on the blue lines who's job it was to receive a pass from the skater and then pass it back.  I was lucky enough to be one of the pylons in the first few run throughs, taking the pass on the boards as they skated in to the offensive zone, laying on the return so that they could have a shot on goal.  A couple other skaters then took the pylon jobs and I got to skate up ice for a shot.

The second last drill was to form three lines at one end of the ice.  From right to left they were 'puck carrier', 'defence' and 'puck support'.  Everyone got to do all roles a couple times.  I did my first ever real poke check at speed when I was defence the first time, robbing two of the better players of their little feast over my bones.  I think they were a bit sheepish and I was just a little chuffed as we returned to do it all again.

The evening ended with a shooting circle again, and then an 'avenue' of deflection targets and rebound takers from close range shooting.  One of my weak but accurate shots surprisingly became a rebound and was put in (counted as a score to me), and I slotted a loose puck which emerged at the back of a tangle of bodies in front of the net on another occasion.

The night ended with a chase the goalie, then chase the quickest skater, on a mad lap or two of the rink.

Time to go home.  Great session.  Good to see familiar faces from Sunday also.  Looking forward to doing it all again.